Rouxls Kaard

Duke of Puzzles (title) Lord of the Puzzles (Jigsaw Joe) Lesser Dad (Lancer, King) Vice Father (Lancer) RK (signature)

King (enemy; former boss) Lancer ("lesser dad"/"vice father" of) Kris (boss, former enemy) Swatch (enemy) Tasque Manager (enemy)

Rouxls Kaard (pronounced "rules card"[1]) is a Darkner from the Card Kingdom. He proclaims himself the "Duke of Puzzles" and is a servant of King in Chapter 1.

In Chapter 1, he challenges the party multiple times throughout Card Castle to complete his puzzles, but they are trivially easy. In Chapter 2, he enters the party's inventory and is taken to the Cyber World. In the Cyber World, he attempts to work for Queen and challenges the party to battle in Queen's Mansion, as a mini boss.

Rouxls Kaard is an adult-sized humanoid. His head is diamond-shaped, with long white hair parted to his left, and a face with a slightly melted appearance composed of two diamond-shaped eyes and a large mouth. He wears a royal blue suit with epaulets. In terms of color-scheme, Rouxls is a flashy deep blue

Rouxls acts very egotistically during the events of Chapter 1. He claims to be the Duke of Puzzles, and attempts to stop the party by forcing them to solve his puzzles. However, he is an incompetent puzzle-maker: each of his puzzles consist of the bare minimum of elements – a box and a button – and he makes no attempt to obfuscate the solution in any way. He also vandalizes clues on puzzles he did not create, in order to make them "harder."

He uses Early Modern English speech patterns, presumably to appear educated, but this amounts to little more than replacing all instances of "you" with "thou," randomly adding "-est" and "-eth" suffixes, and haphazard capitalization of phrases for emphasis. When his pride is hurt, he doubles down by intensifying his misuse of Early Modern English to the point of incomprehensibility; but when surprised or stressed, he tends to drop it altogether.

Rouxls is also the shopkeeper on the fifth floor of Card Castle; initially, he says that he's merely selling the heroes items in order to raise money to defeat them. After all his puzzles are solved and K. Round is defeated, however, he proclaims he's now their ally as he's "always on the winning side," indicating a lack of loyalty in his character. After the downfall of King, he starts seeking for a new tyrant to work under.

Lancer considers Rouxls to be his "lesser dad". Rouxls is alternately irritated with and endeared by Lancer and his antics.

After King and the Knight got into power by locking away the other three kings, all puzzle makers were fired. King then appointed Rouxls Kaard as the new and only Duke of Puzzles to replace the old puzzle makers. Some time before Kris and Susie enter the Card Kingdom, Rouxls vandalizes already existing puzzles in Field and Forest to make them more difficult. In doing so, he purposefully breaks "the rules" of the puzzles, only to comment that "[he] makes [his] own Rules." He appeared to be one of the few Darkners who enjoyed King's rule, as he was placed into a position of power.

After the party reaches Card Castle's second floor, Rouxls traps them in a room with a puzzle, preventing them from leaving before the puzzle is solved. The party manages to solve his puzzle with a one-step solution, and he disappears, allowing the party to continue. However, he appears again on the fourth floor, under similar circumstances. He forces the party to solve his "ultimate puzzle," which simply adds another space to move the box. Upon completion, Rouxls claims that "wasn'tst REALLY [his] ultimate puzzle," and when asked to show the true puzzle, he quickly flees.

Eventually, the party reaches the fifth floor, where Rouxls's shop can be found. He claims to have set the shop up to garner funds for his schemes to defeat the heroes. After the party continues on towards King, Rouxls interrupts them, and enhances a C. Round with a Control Crown; turning it into a K. Round, which he then has the party fight. After the K. Round is defeated, Rouxls's alliance immediately shifts, as he tries to explain to the party that he was simply testing their abilities all along. After claiming that he no longer poses as an obstruction to the party, he goes away.

After King is overthrown, Rouxls can be found on Card Castle's roof, congratulating the party. He is positive that "History shall not forget - The tale of Rouxls Kaard, and the Three Heroes!" Upon mention of his loyalty against them, he attempts to sell out the heroes for their silence.

When the party decides to leave Castle Town, Rouxls will accompany them in Kris' pocket, alongside Lancer. He appears in the KEY tab of their inventory, although he can't be interacted with. When leaving Castle Town, Rouxls becomes the cards item in the Light World. Upon entering the Computer Lab Dark World, he leaves Kris's pocket to become a servant for Queen.

As revealed by Swatch, Rouxls had tried to become "Butler Supremeth" of the Color Cafe, but was kicked out accordingly, leaving the Swatchlings to have to clean up the worms he left on the floor. This suggests he was trying to use them as a form of currency.

Eventually, during Kris and Ralsei's ride through Queen's battery acid lake, Rouxls appears again, riding the rebuilt Thrash Machine the party designed and destroyed during Chapter 1, and challenges Kris and Ralsei to a game of houses. During the fight, he uses different attacks based on the parts the machine is composed of. The fight can be ended either when one player is no longer able to place houses, or when Rouxls's HP is depleted. The way the fight is ended has no long-term impact, though defeating him violently will change his dialog immediately afterwards.[2]

Whether the game was a win, loss, or draw, the outcome is the same: All of Rouxls's body except his head turns to stone, much like Lancer does earlier, as he falls off the Thrash Machine with a "GOD. DAMMIT.", his tumble causing the middle houses and the Thrash Machine to be flung away in the process. Returning to the Color Cafe and mentioning Rouxls again after this has Swatch commend the party for defeating him.

Right before the final showdown with Queen, Rouxls offers the Thrash Machine he rebuilt to aid the party to fight her in her own mech, using the head of the machine he uses during his encounter, which unlocks different ACTs for the battle.